1828.] A Tale of the Pyrenees. 463 
and wider range of thought and feeling, yet can be content to anchor alk 
their hopes on some poor creature moving in a lower sphere, and count- 
ing, as the sum of her homely emotions, that which would be no consi- 
derable item in the calendar of her worshipper ;—and this simple, 
unadorned mortal may be less satisfied with an adoration the magnitude 
of which she cannot comprehend, than with the natural regard of an 
equal friend, moving, thinking, and feeling as she herself has done. 
Such was the pitiable lot of Etchehon. Doating more and more on his 
unworthy wife, he had the torture of beholding her, little by little, 
abandoning the post she had formerly held ; he saw her confidence pass 
into distrust—her warmth become chilled. She smiled languidly on him, 
and sought him no longer for her associate. Her beauty, courted by 
many, was not satisfied with the adoration of one, and in a short time it 
was evident that she preferred another. The name of this other was 
Eguiapal—a man destitute of all principle and moral restraint ; cruel, 
hard-hearted, sensual, and mean. He had contrived to ingratiate himself 
with the wife of his friend; and, partly by advancing his own suit, 
partly by detraction of Etchehon, he succeeded in gaining over the heart 
of the wife. At first secretly, but in progress of time without a show of 
concealment, these two were accustomed to meet, and pass their guilty 
time in a manner which could not be misinterpreted by the quick eye of 
Etchehon. He knew himself deceived—he thought himself dishonoured. 
His strong love for his wife lay at the bottom of his heart so firmly, that 
eyen her infidelity could not shake it from its place. The passion with 
which it was accompanied was that of hot revenge upon Eguiapal, for. his 
present state of degradation ; and the intensity of the one regulated the 
activity of the other. Many strange schemes, in which he became 
involved, were the issue of this desire of vengeance. Others were 
charged upon him by his wife and her paramour, to drive him, if possi- 
ble, from the country, by imputed crimes, or by the wretchedness which 
awaited him at home. No means were left untried that might conduce 
to either end. He was provoked and enticed to acts of violence. If he 
resisted the temptation, the deeds were nevertheless presumed to have 
been done, and busy slander was employed to criminate him. Thus his 
friends fell away, and his foes became numerous. His temper became 
_ more and more wild under the pressure of so much misery ; and when 
he found himself nearly outlawed by mankind for his misfortunes, his 
_ only solace was to indulge in fanciful dreams, and communings with the 
dull objects of nature, and to meditate on defensive acts of blood, which 
would never have had birth in his original and unaltered character. 
The acute reader will readily perceive that he was the concealed per- 
son who had fired on Dominic Etchegogen. He will also conclude that 
he had mistaken the object, and had in reality his foe Eguiapal in his 
mind when he plotted this mode of removing a fellow-creature from the 
Id. Ignorant of the final issue of this transaction, he skulked for a 
ort time among the low trees on the bank ; and, when the night closed 
in, he fled from the scenes of his youth and his distresses, and made for 
_ the mountainous district of Larreau, where he hoped to gain a shelter 
among the simple and hospitable shepherds. He was not disappointed. 
He found them willing as they were able to receive and assist him. They 
adopted him amongst their own tribe; and he strove to forget, in the 
quiet pastoral pleasures of an innocent course of life, the series of wretched 
and evil thoughts that had so long distracted him. He took his share of 
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